The art of Guild Wars

We venture back into Tyria to pursue art director Daniel Dociu

Inspirational artistry: “I do inspirational pieces that stimulate the imaginations of the art team and designers. We use my art to start conversations, and many of the ideas that have to be adapted to the realities of production to make them usable in the game- some turn out not to be useable at all. My job is to inspire the team and push the envelope, and lay the base for the content. Because I believe the environments set the tone for a game, I gravitate towards defining the look of the regions, but when I want to take a break from that, I try my luck with creature or character work.”

Guild lore: “I am not in control of the storyline, nor do I want to be. The way that I personally like to work, and the way things oftentimes work out, is that I throw out ideas and propose a possible context that these ideas could work in- a seed for the storywriters to consider. If at that point I manage to get them inspired and they get excited about the idea, I’ll leave it up to them to expand on that and let that seed grow. We’ll negotiate back and forth, and make sure the idea isn’t watered down and doesn’t compromise the integrity of the vision. It’s a collaborative effort; a synergy of ideas.”